


Spiders in Paris

by Imetyouunderthetreeoflife



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-02 22:07:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6584479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imetyouunderthetreeoflife/pseuds/Imetyouunderthetreeoflife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A quick shot of Enjolras, Grantaire, and Éponine, living together in Paris.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Grantaire sits in the bathtub and draws. His pencil moves in the wings of birds, on the veins of leaves. The shower curtain is blue, the day is rainy, Enjolras and Éponine are fighting in the kitchen. Grantaire can hear them shouting, and they remind him of his parents. Today’s a bad day, an argument about their plans. Grantaire is involved in those plans because he belongs with them, as they say. Something about leaving Paris. Grantaire doesn’t care. If they want to leave this godforsaken city, he will pack his bag in a heartbeat.  
Éponine and Enjolras belong together, matching initials and ideologies. Enjolras rallies for the poor and mistreated and Éponine reads Louis Michel to a group of small girls in front of the cathedral. Grantaire sometimes wonders where the parents of these children are but then, they are all lost and orphaned. It’s a matter of time to realize that. Grantaire used to have no home, too, and slept on trains and in libraries, met Enjolras and Éponine, and now he belongs. Altough he always waits in the bathroom when they are fighting or having sex. He refuses to be involved in either.  
Enjolras wants to leave. That’s how they moved from Dublin to Bucharest, and from there to Prague, and from Prague to Paris, and a dozen smaller cities on the way. Al fin del mundo and jump over the edge. Usually, Enjolras decides and Grantaire and Éponine follow. It’s a good system. The problem is Marius, of course.  
Now, both Enjolras and Grantaire think he’s an asshole. Éponine is blind and in love. The usual.  
There are a few minutes of silence. Enjolras opens the door.  
“You can come out, R.”  
“What’s the verdict, chief?”  
“I hate this place.” But Enjolras hates every place, after a while.  
Grantaire gets out of the tub and hugs him. He can feel the hem of Enjolras’s shirt on his cheek. Éponine joins them and they stand in front of the mirror, hugging. They look like a strange spider of clothes and skin.  
They go out, later in the afternoon. It’s raining and Enjolras is caring a large red umbrella, to protect Grantaire’s paintings. They put a blanket on one of the Seine bridges and Éponine spreads the paintings around for the tourists to buy. She likes to put them according to their colours, from left to right, from yellow to deep blue.


	2. Chapter 2

Éponine sits on the stone railing of the bridge and swings her legs.  
"What do you think we will get?" she asks.  
Enjolras went to get them food while R and she watch tourists walk by. Éponine likes days like this, well, better than the rest.  
"Coffee?" asks Grantaire hopefully.  
"You wish."  
She watches Grantaire draw in his notebook, until he rises his head.  
"How are you holding?" he asks. This is the type of conversation they have when Enjolras's not around. They understand each other. They know one or the other will leave, sooner or later. Or be left, more like. Because, as Éponine thinks, they are all sick in the head.  
"Well." Éponine thinks. "I am seeing Marius on Friday."  
Grantaire scowls at her.  
"Don't be an ass, R. He's real sweet. And homey. He wants children, and he will be a lawyer one day, and... You two don't understand."  
R stands up and stretches. "No, Enjolras doesn't understand. I just think it's stupid. You can't replace us. You don't want to replace us. Anyway, it will be us, in the end, wait and see."  
Éponine slips off the railing and goes sit under the umbrella. It's still raining. She takes out a cigarette and thinks about what R said. Well, it's a possibility. They don't know how it will happen but she's pretty sure she will wake up one day and R and Enjolras will be missing. Or maybe only Enjolras. Then R and she will have to get a cat, and R will be miserable, and they will probably both start drinking, and be kicked on the street, and die freezing in January. Huddled in a hug. Éponine knows it's not the worst way to go but damn, she is a survivor and she's not going to watch this lying down. And Marius is kind and always asks, and sometimes leaves her money under the pillow. Fuck him. Fuck them all.  
"How are you doing?" asks Éponine in turn.  
Grantaire shrugs, takes a breath. "Paris is beautiful," he says at last. "I am glad we are staying."  
And R would think it is, of course he would, seeing all the people, and old buildings, and the sky changing colours. As Éponine sees it, it's them against all this. Against the fucked-up squares who call pigs on them, against the prison cells they end up in (mostly because of Enjolras), against the very stone, and dirt, and their own fights. She wonders if Marius would take her in if she got pregnant. Maybe. Maybe no.  
Enjolras comes back and sits next to her, giving over the paper bag with food and taking the cigarette from her fingers. He crushes it against the ground with a sigh. He doesn't like to see them smoking but she and R have cigarettes hidden all over the flat. "It must be a tough life with us," she says aloud.  
"No coffee?" R asks.  
Éponine tears off a piece of bread and hands it to him. "Bread. Apples." supplies Enjolras.  
A group of German tourists stops by, and Grantaire does his starving talented artist act. They sell Montmartre and the fallen angel.  
Éponine knows R liked the fallen angel. It was also oddly reminiscent of Enjolras.  
We are going down, she thinks, watching the river. How much time will it take to hit the bottom?


	3. Chapter 3

They brought books to the hospital but Enjolras spends most of the visiting hours napping in the armchair. He still half-listens to Éponine's chattering and Grantaire's laugh. Enjolras doesn't like hospitals on principle. In fact, there aren't many places he would like, or for long, and hospitals are only one of them. They remind him of losing his mother, and seeing Éponine in the hospital bed is oddly reminiscent of it. He must remind himself that Éponine's fine. Grantaire, too. He has a sneaking suspicion they sometimes forget to tell him how bad things are. Anyway, it is work, or the sort of work they get. Éponine has talents for finding this sort of things, and they are testing some sort of anti-depressants on her before putting it on the market. Keeping her in for a day or two and blood tests every few hours.  
"What are you planning with the Amis?" Grantaire asks him, as he combs his fingers through Éponine's hair.  
"We have a rally, Saturday. Minimal wage." Because the bastards are trying to avoid paying people a decent living again. Because slave labour is still apparently a grey area, and Enjolras remembers that Feuilly spent his teenage years peeling potatoes throughout the day and begging on the pavements of Marseille at night. The idea that any of them - any of the Amis, or Grantaire, or Éponine - could be alone, and afraid, and without food.. That thousands of people are right now, and that some of them will be killed for stupid and trivial things, sleeping in the wrong alley, getting into a fight with a drunk - his nightmares are woven from these images.  
This reminds him. "Do you still get the dreams?" he turns to the two of them.  
"The scary ones?" Éponine asks.  
"The scary ones."  
"I had one last night," Grantaire shrungs. "A lot of screaming. Guns. The usual."  
"You should have woken me." Enjolras should have known. But Éponine is the light sleeper and she's here. He wonders if she gets the nightmares here, in the hospital, waking up to an empty room. They must stop separating like this. He wonders if she gets them with Marius but to be honest, he doesn't much care. Enjolras would be happy in a universe with only the two of them, spending days together in their bed while the outside world falls to pieces. He hates intruders, with a passion. Grantaire and Éponine are the only people that matter.  
"It's funny," says Grantaire. "It's like the dreams go in circles. It's me, then you, then you. I can't remember when we slept together through the night."  
Enjolras can't either. It's nightmares, or insomnia, or one of them is out of the flat. He spends midnights lying awake, thinking of other places they could go. America, maybe, to get away from all of this. If they stay too long, everything will get worse, as always. Grantaire will start sneaking bottles. Éponine will fall even more in love with somebody. Their plants will die, and they will forget to pay rent. Moving forward is the only way. He will miss his friends from the ABC but he can keep in touch, if he wanted. Paris is becoming stranger and stranger - the dreams, the weather, even the people on the streets. As if the surroundings turnt ancient overnight, as if they were in a painting, strangers without destinations and purposes. Enjolras's afraid that the two of them are losing patience with him. After all, he packs them up every few months and drags them to a new city. Maybe America could be better, they could go to the country, get a cat. Grantaire could paint the landscapes, and Éponine would have a garden with carrots. They could be so happy.  
So Enjolras will wait for things to get a bit worse, right before they become disasterous. Then it will be time to get them out of this mess.  
He looks at the watch. "We should go," he says. Grantaire hugs Éponine and Enjolras kisses her on the forehead. Paris will be another heartbreak.


End file.
